"I mean," he said at last slowly, "that this woman is the woman I love. I care more for her happiness, for her well-being than for anything else in life. And so no matter how we arrange to live, she is all that a woman can be to a man, married or not as it may happen."
"To take another man's wife and live with her!" the Colonel summed up bitterly. "No, Vick, you don't mean that. You can't do a dirty thing like that. Think it over!"
So they argued a little while longer, and finally the old man pleaded with his son for time, offering to see Mrs. Conry, to help her get a separation from her husband, to send her abroad with her child,—to all of which Vickers replied steadily:—
"But I love her, father—you forget that! And she needs me now!"
"Love her!" the old man cried. "Don't call that love!"
Vickers shut his lips and rose, very white.
"I must go now. Let's not say any more. We've never had any bitter words between us, father. You don't understand this—do you think I would hurt you and mother, if it didn't have to be? I gave up my own life, when it was only myself at stake; but I cannot give her up—and everything it will mean to her."
The Colonel turned away his face and refused to see his son's outstretched hand. He could not think without a blush that his son should be able to contemplate this thing. Vickers, as he turned the handle of the door, recollected something and came back.
"Oh, you must cancel that stock agreement. I shouldn't want to own it now that I have quit. The other things, the money, I shall keep. You would like me to have it, father, and it will be quite enough."
The old man made a gesture as if to wave aside the money matter.